American College of the Building Arts

The American College of the Building Arts (ACBA), located in Charleston, South Carolina, was founded in 1999 to educate student-artisans in the preservation and restoration of historic structures. Students complete a liberal arts curriculum that comprises academic courses with hands-on work in the traditional trades of blacksmithing, plaster, masonry and stone, architectural carpentry, and timber framing.

In 2018, 2019, and 2020, ACBA faculty and students worked on several projects that preserve South Carolina’s architectural and cultural heritage. These include:

• Preservation of Hutchinson House, Edisto Island, South Carolina From January through May 2018, twenty-six sophomores under the direction of Professor Christina Rae Butler, M.A. created a preliminary preservation plan for the circa 1886 Hutchinson House on Edisto Island.

• Fort Sumter National Monument (1829). In the summer of 2018, students worked along the fort’s gorge wall and right flank, moving Portland cement repairs from the 1990s and repointed the joints using a more historically sympathetic natural cement mortar that will be less damaging to the brick while still easily withstanding the wear caused by ocean and weather.

• Historic Brattonsville. 2020 Student Guild President and Valedictorian Jennifer Sustar designed masons’ scaffolding for Historic Brattonsville in McConnells, S.C., showing how scaffolding was used to build historic brick structures.